Six Systems of Indian Philosophy

At a Glance

• Goals of life Dharma, artha, kama, moksha
• Systems Six darshanas
• Materialist strands Samkhya, Vaisheshika
• Logic Nyaya
• Vedanta commentators Shankara, Ramanuja
• Exam link UPSC Prelims, Ancient History: Philosophy, Cultural Interaction and Transition

Where Does It Fit?

This is the first topic of the category on philosophy, cultural interaction and transition. The previous category ended with brahmanisation in the peninsula, and this one opens with the schools of philosophy. The next topic covers the Charvaka school. Previous topic: Brahmanisation, Land Grants and Peasant Protest in the Peninsula.

What Were the Goals of Life?

In short: once the state and varna order were established, thinkers named four goals and wrote on each.

Once the state and the varna-divided social order had been firmly established, ancient thinkers advocated four goals of life: regulation of social order or dharma, economic resources or artha, physical pleasure or kama, and salvation or moksha. Each was expounded in writing: the Arthashastra on economy, the Dharmashastras on law, and the Kamasutra on pleasure. These three dealt with the material world and only marginally touched on salvation. Moksha, meaning deliverance from the cycle of birth and death, first recommended by Gautama Buddha and later emphasised by some brahmanical philosophers, became the central subject of the darshanas. By the beginning of the Christian era six schools of philosophy had developed: Samkhya, Yoga, Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Mimamsa and Vedanta. The Upanishadic origin of the quest is in Later Vedic Religion, Rituals and Philosophy.

What Do Samkhya, Yoga, Nyaya and Vaisheshika Teach?

Samkhya, literally count, seems to have originated first. In its early form the presence of a divine agency was not essential to creation, and the world owed its creation and evolution to Nature or prakriti, a rational and scientific view. Around the fourth century AD purusha, spirit, was introduced, and creation was attributed to both, so a materialist school turned spiritualist. Salvation came through real knowledge acquired by perception (pratyaksha), inference (anumana) and hearing (shabda). The Yoga school held that salvation comes through meditation and physical practice, with control over pleasure, senses and body organs, postures called asanas and breathing exercises called pranayama, which divert the mind from worldly matters; these presuppose some knowledge of physiology and anatomy but also a tendency to escape worldly difficulties. Nyaya, the school of analysis, developed logic: salvation through knowledge, and the truth of a statement tested through inference, hearing and analogy, with the example of fire in the mountain because there is smoke. The Nyaya Sutra seems compiled about AD 400 and mentions four proofs: perception, inference, comparison and testimony. Vaisheshika dealt with material elements or dravya, distinguishing particularities and aggregates; earth, water, fire, air and ether combine to make new objects, and it put forward the atom theory, marking the beginning of physics in India, though belief in god and spiritualism diluted its scientific view.

What Do Mimamsa and Vedanta Say?

Mimamsa, the art of reasoning and interpretation, used reasoning to justify Vedic rituals and made salvation depend on performing them. It held that the Vedas contain eternal truth, that a person enjoys heaven as long as accumulated virtue lasts and returns when it is exhausted, and that those who attain salvation are free from rebirth. It strongly recommended Vedic sacrifices, which needed priests and legitimised social distance among varnas, so the brahmanas used it to maintain ritual authority and the social hierarchy. Vedanta, meaning the end of the Veda, traces to the earlier Upanishads. Its basic text, the Brahmasutra of Badarayana, was compiled in the second century BC, and two famous commentaries followed, by Shankara in the ninth century and Ramanuja in the twelfth. Shankara regarded brahma as without attributes and knowledge or jnana as the chief means of salvation, while Ramanuja’s brahma had attributes and his road was devotion. According to Vedanta, brahma is the reality and everything else maya, and atma coincides with brahma, so knowledge of the self gives salvation. Both are eternal and indestructible, which promotes the idea of stability. The theory of karma and rebirth became linked to Vedanta, implying that people suffer from causes they cannot know or control.

As an analytical point, the systems range from rationalist and materialist beginnings to ritualist and idealist positions, and the idealist ones, linked to a decline in trade and towns, overshadowed materialism by the fifth century, as discussed in Charvaka and the Materialistic View of Life. The social implications of Vedanta and karma are in Sequence of Social Changes in Ancient India.

Why Is This Topic Important?

• Prelims favourite Schools and ideas
• Comparison Rationalist and ritualist
• Link To social order

What Came Next?

The next topic describes Charvaka and the materialistic view of life. Next topic: Charvaka and the Materialistic View of Life.

Key People and Terms

• Darshana System of philosophy
• Prakriti Nature
• Purusha Spirit
• Pramana Means of valid knowledge
• Moksha Release from rebirth
• Maya Illusion

Exam Corner

Mains Angle

Questions ask for the schools’ core ideas and social role. These points add depth.

• Ideas Six darshanas
• Rational strands Samkhya, Nyaya
• Social role Mimamsa, Vedanta